Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/128

 FLANDRIN

FLANDRIN

six centuries had connected Flanders to France. Philip was succeeded by Charles the Bold (1467-1477), the marriage of whose daughter to Maximilian, Arch- duke of Austria, brought Flanders with the rest of the Low Countries under the rule of the House of Haps- burg in 1477. In 1488, the communes tried to recover their independence. The attempt w'as unsuccessful, and the war was disastrous for Bruges, because it has- tened her approaching decline. The main causes of this decline were: the silting up of her harbour, which became inaccessible to large vessels; the discovery of America, which opened new fields for European enter- prise; the dissolution of the Flemish Ilanse, whose seat was in Bruges; the unintelligent policy of the dukes towards England; and the civil wars of the preceding fifty years. The prosperity of Bruges passed to Ant- werp. The reign of the House of Burgundy, in many respects so harmful to Flanders, was a period of artis- tic splendour. To that time belong Memling and the Van Eycks, the first representatives of the Flemish school of painters. Flemish literature on the whole declined, but a Fleming, Philippe de Comines, was the leading French ■nTiter of the fifteenth century. An- other Fleming of that time, Thierry Maertens of Alost, was the Gutenberg of the Low Countries. Flanders can also claim two of tlie greatest scientists of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries: Simon Stevin, mathematician and engineer, and the Jesuit Father Gr^goire de Saint- Vincent, whom Leibniz considered the equal of Descartes.

Although the material condition of Flanders is to- day very satisfactory, the country has not recovered its former prosperity. And it is not likely that it ever will, not because of any decrease in the energy of the Flemish race, but because economic contlitions have changed. Intellectually the Flemings of the twenti- eth century are still the true sons of the glorious gen- erations which produced Van Maerlant, Van Arte- velde, Rubens, and Van Dyck; perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that they have taken the lead in promoting the prosperity of Belgium. The Flemish tongue, w-hich during the eighteenth century had fal- len so low that in 1830 it was little more than a patois, has risen again to the rank of a literary language and can claim the larger portion of the literary production of Belgium in the last seventy-five years; nay, the Flemings have even made important contributions to French literature. In the fine arts, in the sciences, in politics, their activity is no less remarkable. They have given the Belgian Parliament some of its best orators and its ablest statesmen: Malou, Jacobs, Woeste, Beernaert, SchoUaert. Above all they have retained, as the most precious inheritance of the past ages, the simple, fervent, vigorous faith of the crusa- ders and their filial attitude towards the Church. No country sends out a larger proportion of secular and regular missionaries, some of wliom (like Father P. J. De Smet, the apostle of the American Indians) have attained a world-wide celebrity. Flanders may, in- deed, be considered the bulwark of Catholicism in Bel- gium. The Socialists are well aware of this fact, but the Catholics realize it just as clearly, and their de- fence is eq\ial to the enemy's attack. Every Flemish community has its parochial schools; the Catholic press is equal to its task ; and the " Volk " of Ghent has been organized to counteract the evil influence of the Socialist "Voruit".

Kervyn de Lettenhove, IliM. de Flandre (Brussels, 1S4S-

.TO): Moke and Hubert, Hist, de Belgique (Brussels. 1S95);

KuRTH, Oriqines dela Civilisation Modenie (Brussels, 1886); Hy-

MANS, Histoire parlementaive dela Belgique (Brussels, 1S77-1906).

P. J. Marique.

Flandrin, Jean-Hippolyte, French painter, b. at Lyons, 2.S March, 1809; d. at Rome, 21 March, 1864. He came of a family of poor artisans and was a

Eupil of the sculptor Legcndro and of Rcvoil. In is education, however, two elements must above all

be taken into account. The first is the Lyonnaise genius. Various causes, physical and historical, have combined to give the city of Lyons a character all its own. This is twofold — religious and democratic — and the labouring classes ha^■e always been an active centre of idealism. This is especially noticeable in its poets, from Maurice Sceve to Lamartine, Lyons has also always been the great entrepot for Italy, and the province was a permanent centre of Roman culture. The second factor in Flandrin 's development was the influence of Ingres, without which it is doubtful whether Flandrin would have achieved any fame. In 1829 Flandrin, with his brother Jean-Paul (the land- scape painter), went to Paris, where he became a pupil of Ingres, who conceived a paternal affection for him. In Paris the young man experienced the bitterest trials. He was often without a fire, sometimes with- out bread, but he was sustained by a quiet but un- shakable faith, and finally (1832) carried off the Grand Prix de Rome through "The Recognition of Theseus by his Father ' '. At Rome, where, after 1834, Ingres was director of the French Academy, his tal- ents expanded and blossomed imder the influence of natural beauty, a mild climate, and the noble spectacle of the works of classic and Christian antiquities. He sent thence to the French salons: " Dante and Virgil " (Lyons Museum, 1835); "Euripides" (Lyons Mu- seum, 1835); "St. Clare Healing the Blind" (Cathe- dral of Nantes, 1836) ; "Christ Blessing the Children" (Lisieux Museum, 1837). The serenity of his nature, his chaste sen.se of form and beauty, his taste for effec- tive disposition of details, his moral elevation, and profound piety, found expression in these early ef- forts. On his return to Paris, in 1838, he was all in- tent upon producing great religious works.

At this time there sprang up throughout the French School a powerful reaction against " useless pictures", again.st the conventional canvases exhibited since the end of the eighteenth century (Quatremere de Quiney, "Notices historiques", Paris, 18.34, 311), There was a return to an art more expressive of life, less arbi- trary, more mural and decorative. Delacroix, Chas- s^rian, and the aged Ingres were engaged on mural paintings. It was above all, however, the walls of the churches which offered an infinite field to the decora- tors, to Chass&iau, Victor Mottez, Couture, and Amauiy Duval. Within fifteen or twenty years this great pictorial movement, all too obscure, left on the walls of the public buildings and churches of Paris pictorial treasures such as had not been seen since the age of Giotto. It is possible, and even probable that the first impulse towards this movement (especially so far as religious paintings are concerned) was due to the Nazarene School. Ingres had known Overbeck and Steinle at Rome; Flandrin may well have known them. In any case it is these artists whom he resem- bles above all in purity of sentiment and profound conviction, though he possessed a better artistic edu- cation. From 1840 his work is scarcely more than a painstaking revival of religious painting. The artist made it his mission in France to serve art more bril- liantly than ever, for the glory of God, and to make beauty, as of old, a source of instruction and an in- strument of edification to the great body of the faith- ful. He found a sort of apostolate before him. He was one of the petits prcdicateurs i!e I'Evangile. Artis- tic productions in the mid-nineteenth century, as in the Middle .\ges, became the Biblia Pauperum.

Henceforth Flandrin's life was passed almost en- tirely in churches, hovering between heaven and earth on his ladders and scaffolds. Ilis first work in Paris was in the chapel of St-Jean in the church of St-S6v- erin. He next decorated the sanctuary and choir of the church of St-Germain-des-Prfe (1842-48). On either side of the sanctuary he painted "Christ's En- try into Jerusalem" and "The Journey to Calvary", besides the figures of the Apostles and the symbols oi